Unknown Ducks making a name for themselves

Ron Bellamy

Sunday

Mar 21, 2010 at 12:01 AM

Who are these guys?

It’s the very same question that Oregon men’s golf coach Casey Martin admittedly asked himself earlier this month, as the Ducks astonished even their coach in blowing away a high-class field to win the USC Intercollegiate Tournament in California.

Who are these guys?

It’s a question that could reverberate throughout collegiate golf this spring, after an impressive start in which the Ducks are leading the nation in scoring average, at 71.47 strokes per round, and have climbed into the top 10 in the two major golf rankings — No. 3 in the Golfstat.com, behind perennial powerhouses Oklahoma State and Stanford, and No. 9 in the recent Golfweek/Sagarin performance index.

Who are these guys?

“I have a really resilient, really competitive group, which is so important in golf — to be mentally tough and want the challenge and not be afraid,” Martin said. “These kids are young, but they’ve got that little chip on their shoulder, that they want to beat these bigger teams. And because of that, they’re now a bigger team. ...

“It’s every team’s goal to win the national championship. And that’s ours. That’s what you’re playing for. It’s not unthinkable when you’re ranked in the top 10, that that’s your goal. It probably wasn’t our goal when I took over four years ago, because it probably wasn’t super realistic.

“But these kids. That’s what they want to do. The over-rushing goal is to build a championship program and try to win a Pac-10 championship and a national championship.”

The Ducks will be on display Monday and Tuesday when they host 13 teams, including Oregon State, ranked No. 25 by Golfstat.com, and last year’s national runner-up, Arkansas, in the Oregon Duck Invitational at Shadow Hills Country Club. Teams will play 36 holes Monday, in a shotgun start beginning at 8 a.m., with the final 18 holes beginning at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

Without a senior on the roster, the Ducks are led by three sophomores — Eugene Wong, from Vancouver, B.C.; Daniel Miernicki, from Santee, Calif., and Andrew Vijarro, from Bend. Junior Isaiah Telles from Tualatin has been a consistent fourth, while a trio of golfers — juniors Jack Dukeminier of Sheldon High School and Sean Maekawa of Hawaii and sophomore Jack Paton, from Hillsborough, Calif. — have battled for the fifth spot.

Wong is ranked No. 3 in the nation by Golfstat.com, after three top-13 finishes, including a victory in the USC tournament — a tournament that Tiger Woods, Corey Pavin and Paul Casey of the PGA Tour won as collegians — in which his 10-under matched the tournament record. He’s the crown jewel of a recruiting class that Martin signed in 2008, his second full year on the job.

The key to that group, Martin said, was Robbie Ziegler, redshirting this season. A nationally ranked juniors player (as high as No. 13) from Canby, Ziegler was the first to commit and brought “credibility.” Miernicki, “a special player,” was somewhat under the radar. And Martin had figured Wong would go to Washington and was focusing on another prospect. That golfer went to Arizona State, Martin said, but the loss became a gain when Wong, the 2008 Junior World Championships winner, chose Oregon.

“When I was able to get him I thought, ‘Wow, I’ve got three great players,’” Martin said.

It was Ziegler who pushed him to recruit Vijarro harder. “Robbie said ‘Coach, you’ve got to get this guy, he’s going to be great,’” Martin said.

“I really won the lottery there. Andrew is a great player and a great kid and has done an amazing job.

“He’s put that class over the top. He’s got that aggressive mentality. He’s been the underdog all his life and he’s out to prove everyone wrong, that he’s a great player. He’s brought that attitude and totally pushed this team.”

As freshmen last season, the newcomers took some lumps early, then closed strongly, finishing second in the Pac-10 championships — Oregon’s best finish since 1997 — and reaching the NCAA Championships, giving the Ducks back-to-back appearances for the first time since 1998-99. In this school year, the Ducks had “a nice fall, but we didn’t do anything outstanding,” Martin said, noting that they led all four tournaments in which they played but “didn’t seal the deal in any of them.”

Before the December break, Martin told the Ducks that their first tournament of the new year, the Hilo Invitational in early February, would contain a high-powered field — seven top 10 teams — and would “kind of define our season to a large extent.” Rising to the occasion, the Ducks finished second, losing to Stanford by three strokes over the last few holes and finishing ahead of Oklahoma State.

“To my guys’ credit, they love that aspect, they love the bigger stage and the challenge,” Martin said. “They went over to Hawaii and just played incredible. Coulda, shoulda won that tournament ... but that was an eye-opener for me, that, hey, we can play with these guys.”

That performance propelled Oregon into the rankings, and then came the USC Invitational and that runaway 16-stroke victory. The next tournament was rougher, as the Ducks stumbled out of the gate in the Fresno State Lexus Classic — using a football analogy, Martin said it was as if the Ducks “threw three pick sixes in the first quarter,” — but battled back to finish fourth, three shots off the lead.

In coaching the Ducks, Martin stresses that there’s no substitute for hard work; he wants players who are “gym rats, so to speak,” spending time at the golf course every day and focusing on their short games. “It’s easy to go hit balls all day and think you’re doing a great job with your golf game, but the scoring aspects are 100 yards and in,” Martin said.

Martin said these Ducks remind him of his playing days at Stanford, where talented players competed daily and pushed each other. Those teams, too, had to deal with the expectations and pressures that go with being highly ranked, something the Ducks are just starting to learn about.

“I’ve been trying to harp on the guys this year that (winning a championship) is obviously what we want to do, but just focusing on it won’t get it done,” Martin said. “You’ve got to focus on the things that enable that to happen. I really challenge the guys ... to be the hardest working team and be the most clear-minded team when we go to play, and challenge them to use their mind in the right way — not be cluttered with golf stuff, but to be aggressive and to be clear and to be loose.

“When we play that way, when we’re having fun and being aggressive and not trying to protect something, we’re pretty good.”

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